John Englehardt will read from his novel, “Bloomland,” at a virtual event on Oct. 15 at 7 p.m. (Photo by Katherine Tombs)
John Englehardt has received accolades for his debut novel, “Bloomland,” but winning the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award carries a particular meaning. The novel, which examines a school shooting, is set within an area that the judges are intimately familiar with — higher education.
“Bloomland,” published by Dzanc Books after Englehardt won the publisher’s 2018 Prize for Fiction, begins with a mass shooting at a fictional Southern college. Told from the perspectives of a student, a teacher and the shooter himself, the novel explores the moments leading up to the traumatic event and its aftermath.
Englehardt, 33, says he didn’t set out to write a novel about a campus shooting. The book developed out of his desire to explore structural imbalances, male aggression, entitlement and the ways in which young adults strive to construct identities. In the midst of writing, however, he became aware that these themes were “directly related to ceremonial male violence.” While he was writing, several mass shootings occurred, and Englehardt realized that such an event could serve as the novel’s jumping-off point, “a prism through which to look at societal issues, including male rage and the American ideal of violence as a redemptive act.”
(Image courtesy Dzanc Books)
The topic of gun control isn’t the focus of the book, and it’s not something the author wants to discuss in conversations about his work. A writing teacher himself, Englehardt would rather consider the root causes of shootings, vengeance in interpersonal relationships and the ways in which young men are trained to be stoic and disconnected.
“It’s a conversation I don’t not want to be a part of,” he says, “but I don’t want to present myself as an expert on gun control.”
“I would like young men to have a better way to express their emotions,” he says. “I would like for them to not grow up thinking disconnection was a value.”
For Englehardt, connection has come in part through writing. He started in high school with song lyrics, short stories and poems, during a time when he “needed a lens through which to process emotions.” Around the same time, Englehardt, who hadn’t read much outside of school assignments, purchased poet T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land.”
“It was a strange book for a 15-year-old to go out and buy,” he says. “It baffled me in a way that felt OK, and that’s what I carried through — this idea of writing that was more mysterious, that casts doubt on the world and that I didn’t understand.”
A mass shooting provided a relevant focal point for “Bloomland” because the act is so difficult to comprehend. “Lots of people don’t understand. We want answers,” Englehardt says. “As a novelist, that’s a subject matter I’m looking to explore, to cast doubt on preconceived notions.”
“Bloomland” was a departure from the more inward-looking short stories that Englehardt wrote for his MFA thesis. He took an interdisciplinary approach, reading sociological studies about gun violence, mass shootings and capital punishment, as well as texts on grief, patriarchal society and toxic masculinity. He addresses the themes with a thoughtful eloquence.
The realization that the book’s inciting event and themes are so “sadly relevant” to our current reality motivated Englehardt to work through the project for five years. At times, he admits, he had to step away because of the intensely emotional experience of watching videos of trials and coverage of mass shootings.
With Englehardt’s second novel, he’s developing tension without tragedy. “I don’t want anyone to die in my next book,” he says. Instead, Englehardt seeks to better understand the world through a more intimate lens as he probes the lives of a couple trying — but sometimes failing — to create a better world for themselves and their community.
